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In reference to my post yesterday..
A professor gave a balloon to every student, who had to inflate it, write their name on it and throw it in the hallway. The professor then mixed all the balloons. The students were given 5 minutes to find their own balloon. Despite a hectic search, no one found their balloon. At that point the professor told the students to take the first balloon that they found and hand it to the person whose name was written on it. Within 5 minutes everyone had their own balloon.
The professor said to the students: “These balloons are like happiness. We will never find it if everyone is looking for their own. But if we care about other people's happiness....we'll find ours too. This is the same as "community building" if we all help and support each other.. we would be much happier.. just something to think about.. as a side note.. I love teachers who teach like this!
Here’s to caring about everyone’s happiness .. now and always!
A professor gave a balloon to every student, who had to inflate it, write their name on it and throw it in the hallway. The professor then mixed all the balloons. The students were given 5 minutes to find their own balloon. Despite a hectic search, no one found their balloon. At that point the professor told the students to take the first balloon that they found and hand it to the person whose name was written on it. Within 5 minutes everyone had their own balloon.
The professor said to the students: “These balloons are like happiness. We will never find it if everyone is looking for their own. But if we care about other people's happiness....we'll find ours too. This is the same as "community building" if we all help and support each other.. we would be much happier.. just something to think about.. as a side note.. I love teachers who teach like this!
Here’s to caring about everyone’s happiness .. now and always!
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I think you've just fundamentally described what socialism is! I realise that that will probably scare the living daylights out of the average, everyday American over the age of 40, but think about it!
Best give a heads up though, I'm not referring to the faux so called socialism as practiced in the former Soviet Union, more the kind of democratic socialism of Bernie Sanders and Yanis Varoufakis that is increasingly becoming more appealing to the younger dispossessed generations in most of the world's developed countries denied so many of those things baby boomers took for granted, such as affordable housing, a stable job and in all countries of the developed world apart from the USA, a community run healthcare system that doesn't cost an arm and leg, sometimes literally so.
Of course, it's a bit more complex than that, but it has to start somewhere and caring for one another is a great starting point.
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Best give a heads up though, I'm not referring to the faux so called socialism as practiced in the former Soviet Union, more the kind of democratic socialism of Bernie Sanders and Yanis Varoufakis that is increasingly becoming more appealing to the younger dispossessed generations in most of the world's developed countries denied so many of those things baby boomers took for granted, such as affordable housing, a stable job and in all countries of the developed world apart from the USA, a community run healthcare system that doesn't cost an arm and leg, sometimes literally so.
Of course, it's a bit more complex than that, but it has to start somewhere and caring for one another is a great starting point.
If you read it again Ellen, you'll see that it's nuanced. It may not be obvious, but it's also a little tongue in cheek, as well as being pretty factual in that for decades anti-socialist propaganda has been something mainstream in US society, stemming from the McCarthyism of the 1950s and attempts to conflate the awful regimes of the Soviet empire as being indicative of socialism as an idea.
As far as I can see, there is nothing there that I can see as 'anti-American' and there is certainly no intention on my part to make it such. Indeed, my comment is more influenced by the thinking of people like Bernie Sanders and Michael Moore than any others, who, whatever one may think about them, see themselves as very proud Americans who are very aware of what ordinary working people in the United States have lost in the past half century, who are yet critical of current policies for the very reasons I laid out in my comment.
They are not alone, of course, as the ordinary working people of the UK have experienced similar losses, and to perhaps a lesser extent, ordinary working people in the rest of the developed world also.
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As far as I can see, there is nothing there that I can see as 'anti-American' and there is certainly no intention on my part to make it such. Indeed, my comment is more influenced by the thinking of people like Bernie Sanders and Michael Moore than any others, who, whatever one may think about them, see themselves as very proud Americans who are very aware of what ordinary working people in the United States have lost in the past half century, who are yet critical of current policies for the very reasons I laid out in my comment.
They are not alone, of course, as the ordinary working people of the UK have experienced similar losses, and to perhaps a lesser extent, ordinary working people in the rest of the developed world also.
Just where is the anti-American comment I made? If it’s about the USA being the only developed economy withour a socialised healthcare system, it’s a fact, not necessarily a judgement. If it’s about my comment about the views of the over 40s towards socialism, again it’s a fact, not a judgement: https://news.gallup.com/poll/268766/socialism-popular-capi...
We can both see insults and slurs where we want, and I agree that it’s easy to make broad-brushed unsubstantiated attacks on whole peoples, and apart from the occasional unintended slip-up I do not do this. And I haven’t here. I have no fear of, and in fact welcome people from elsewhere making informed but crtitical comments about my country or society, as who knows, they might actually be highlighting serious shortcomings that we ourselves are too close to see?
If my intial comment was anti anything, it was anti-Captialist and not anti-American.
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We can both see insults and slurs where we want, and I agree that it’s easy to make broad-brushed unsubstantiated attacks on whole peoples, and apart from the occasional unintended slip-up I do not do this. And I haven’t here. I have no fear of, and in fact welcome people from elsewhere making informed but crtitical comments about my country or society, as who knows, they might actually be highlighting serious shortcomings that we ourselves are too close to see?
If my intial comment was anti anything, it was anti-Captialist and not anti-American.
Isn't there a fair amount of truth in my somewhat tongue-in-cheek comment? As such not anti-American and not intended to be.
One could make a comment in a similar vein about a significant number of British (and Welsh) people being xenophobic towards 'foreigners' particularly the French, and whilst it doesn't characterise all British people, it does reflect a truth and is not anti-British (and I am avowedly anti-British about many, if not most things).
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One could make a comment in a similar vein about a significant number of British (and Welsh) people being xenophobic towards 'foreigners' particularly the French, and whilst it doesn't characterise all British people, it does reflect a truth and is not anti-British (and I am avowedly anti-British about many, if not most things).